


We’ll Carry On

by WhatsYourNameMan



Series: It’s not Sunset Cis either [4]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alex and Reggie have bad parents but they’re only mentioned briefly, F/M, Implied/Referenced Transphobia, M/M, Post-Canon, The Black Parade, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, give me more Julie and Willie as bickering best friends please, mentions of coming out, mentions of dysphoria, this is barely a plot but I just think it’s neat, trans!Reggie, trans!alex, trans!luke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27834823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatsYourNameMan/pseuds/WhatsYourNameMan
Summary: Julie will absolutely never forgive Willie for kickstarting the boys’ emo phase.Or, Willie introduces the Phantoms to My Chemical Romance and they lose their shit.
Relationships: Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina & Willie, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Series: It’s not Sunset Cis either [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022667
Comments: 15
Kudos: 339





	We’ll Carry On

**Author's Note:**

> I was forced to watch Adam for class so here’s my incredibly self-indulgent trans!Phantoms emo fic to cleanse my soul.

Julie is grateful for Willie for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones is that she no longer has to singlehandedly educate the boys on all the pop culture they’ve missed. For example, he’s a lot better at explaining all the changes made to _Star Wars_. Whenever Julie tries, Reggie ends up getting upset, but Willie has a calm way of minimizing the changes that makes Reggie much more receptive. 

However, she will absolutely never forgive Willie for kickstarting the boys’ emo phase. 

It begins in the studio. They’ve finished rehearsal, and while Willie had initially only dropped by to watch, he ended up staying afterwards. He’s sitting on the piano bench now, and Julie figures Alex must be having a bad day, because the only time the two of them aren’t literally clinging to each other is when Alex is too dysphoric to be touched. The drummer sits on the chair while Luke and Julie cuddle on the couch and Reggie perches on the coffee table. 

They’re chatting about everything and nothing when Julie hears it. 

The G note. 

Willie starts idly plucking out the opening notes of “Welcome to the Black Parade,” seemingly unaware of what he’s doing. 

“That’s really good, Willie,” Alex says, sitting up to get a better look at him. “What is it?” 

“Oh my god,” Willie says. “I forgot you guys totally missed out on emo.” 

Luke scoffs. “We know what emo is.”

“Yeah,” Reggie says, “like Jawbreaker.” 

Julie shakes her head. “Emo blew up after you guys died. It was huge in the early 2000s.” 

“Julie, we have to play My Chemical Romance for them,” Willie says, literally bouncing with excitement. “They’ll love it.” 

“That’s like 12 years of music.”

“We can at least play them the Black Parade. Come on, it’ll only take 52 minutes.”

He must be taking puppy dog eye lessons from Luke, because Julie melts. “Fine.”

“Why do you know exactly how long it is?” Alex asks. 

“Because it’s the only perfect album in musical history,” Willie says, like it’s obvious.

Alex frowns. “I thought you said our demo was perfect.” 

“Technically a demo isn’t an album,” Reggie volunteers, and Alex reaches over to thump him on the arm. 

“Thank you, Reggie,” Willie grins. “Now, are we doing this?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m looking for it now,” Julie says, scrolling through Spotify on her phone. 

“No,” Willie says, “we have to do this the proper way.” He poofs away for a second, and when he comes back he’s holding a Black Parade vinyl. 

“Oh my god,” Julie says. “Of course you had an emo phase.”

“I’m sorry, Miss 1D-4-Life is going to talk to me about embarrassing phases?” Willie taunts back. 

“At least I don’t still have a crush on Justin Bieber,” Julie retorts. Willie’s face goes bright red and Julie knows she’s won. 

“You said I didn’t have to be jealous of the beaver guy,” Alex cries. 

“Okay I’m starting the album now,” Willie blurts, and puts the needle on the record.

The first chords of “The End” fill the room at top volume. 

_Now come one, come all to this tragic affair  
Wipe off that makeup, what’s in is despair._

Willie settles on the floor in front of Alex, who starts playing with Willie’s hair on instinct. The boys listen respectfully, not quite into it yet.

_So throw on a black dress, mix in with the lot  
You might wake up and notice you’re someone you’re not._

This line catches Luke’s attention, and he sits up a little straighter. 

_If you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see  
You can find out firsthand what it’s like to be me._

Luke locks eyes with Alex and Reggie, trying to confirm that they heard what he did. From the looks on their faces, they interpreted it the same way as him. 

Willie grins. “Oh yeah,” he says, “did I mention Gerard Way is genderqueer?” 

“What?” All three boys ask in unison, and Julie knows that’s the tipping point. She’ll be doomed to listen to this album forever. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The Black Parade quickly become part of the boys’ afterlife, and by extension it becomes part of Julie’s life. 

Sometimes it’s amusing, like when Reggie forgets he’s a ghost and tries to flirt with lifers. Julie can’t help the laugh that comes out when Alex and Luke sing to him, “ _Have you heard the news that you’re dead?_ ”

Most of the time, though, it’s a lot deeper. Julie usually catches the boys listening to the album on their bad days. 

Sometimes, “Unsaid Emily” isn’t quite what Luke needs when he’s feeling emotional about his mom, and Julie hears him sing “This is How I Disappear” when he thinks she’s not around. 

_Can you hear me cry out to you?  
Words I thought I’d choke on figure out  
I’m really not so with you anymore  
I’m just a ghost  
So I can’t hurt you anymore._

One day, Julie catches Reggie crying in the studio, listening to “The Sharpest Lives.”

“What’s up, Reg?” She asks, leaning against him on the couch. 

He sniffles and says, “Listen,” then starts the song over. 

_Well it rains and pours when you’re out on your own  
If I crash on the couch can I sleep in my clothes?  
Cause I spent the night dancing, I’m drunk I suppose  
If it looks like I’m laughing I’m really just asking to leave this alone  
You’re in time for the show  
I’m the one that you need, I’m the one that you loathe  
You can watch me corrode like a beast in repose  
Cause I love all the poison away with the boys in the band._

“I know it’s about, like, getting drunk at parties or whatever,” Reggie says, “but it feels like it’s about me.”

Julie squeezes his hand and waits for him to continue. 

“I can’t count all the nights I spent crashing on this couch, laughing off all the shit my parents put me through. There was a lot of poison in my life—“

“Literally,” Julie jokes. 

“Yeah,” Reggie laughs. “But the boys in the band love it all away.” 

“I love you, Reg.” Julie knows he knows that, but it never hurts to remind him. 

Clearly, it’s what he needed to hear. “I love you too, Jules.” 

Alex’s favorite song is “Mama,” but whenever he listens to it, he only ever songs along to one specific line:

_You should have raised a baby girl  
I should have been a better son._

That’s how he tells Julie about what happened with his parents; how they threw him out after he told them he was trans. She hugs him for the rest of the night and listens to the album on loop with him. 

Some of the songs are too painful for them to listen to. None of them have touched “Cancer” since the first time they heard it, and “Famous Last Words” just reminds them of the life they’ll never live. They love “Teenagers,” though, and it’s their soundtrack of choice when they decide to get up to some ghostly mischief. Ray thinks it’s appropriate— teenagers _do_ scare the living shit out of him. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Julie, please,” Luke begs. He pulls his best puppy dog eyes, and Julie forces herself to look away.

“We’re not adding ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ to our set,” Julie says. 

“Why not? It’s perfect. We’re literally _your phantoms to lead you_.”

Julie tries to hide her smile at the way he sings the lyric. “We’re not an emo band.”

“We opened for one of the biggest emo bands there is,” Alex argues. 

“Panic! isn’t emo anymore,” Julie reminds him, “because emo died in 2013.”

“And we died in 1995,” Reggie says. “What’s your point?” 

Julie turns to glare at Willie. “This is all your fault.” 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Willie frowns. “I love it.”

Julie scoffs. “You just like seeing Alex in eyeliner.”

Willie grins and wraps his arms around Alex’s waist. “Yeah, I do.”

Alex starts blushing and stammering, so Luke steps forward to save him. 

“Just one show. If you hate it, we’ll take it off the set list forever.” 

Damn those puppy eyes. “Fine,” Julie sighs. “One gig.”

All the boys cheer, including Willie. Julie puts her head in her hands, hoping she won’t regret this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“So this next song might be one you already know,” Julie says, peering out at the audience, or as much as she can with the blinding lights. She deliberately chose a smaller gig to do this, but the room is still packed to the brim. “It’s a bit different from our regular sound, but the boys are big fans of My Chemical Romance, so...”

She hits the G note. There’s a cheer from the audience. Julie lets Luke take the first verse. 

“ _When I was a young boy  
My father took me into the city  
To see a marching band  
He said, ‘Son when you grow up  
Will you be the savior of the broken  
The beaten and the damned?  
Because one day, I’ll leave you  
A phantom to lead you in the summer  
And join the Black Parade._”

Someone cheers on the word “phantom,” and the energy only intensifies as the drums kick in. The other boys join in on vocals. 

“ _When I was a young boy  
My father took me into the city  
To see a marching band  
He said, ‘Son when you grow up  
Will you be the savior of the broken  
The beaten and the damned?’_”

Now it’s Julie’s turn. 

“ _Sometimes I get the feeling  
She’s watching over me  
And other times I feel like I should go._”

It isn’t until this moment that Julie realizes this song could very well be about her mom. Luke joins her on the harmony. 

“ _But through it all, the rise and fall  
The bodies in the streets  
And when you’re gone, we want you all to know—_”

Julie pulls her eyes from Luke’s and goes to face Alex. “ _We’ll carry on._ ” She looks to Reggie next. “ _We’ll carry on._ ”

She sings the next line to the sky, for her mom. “ _And though you’re dead and gone, believe me  
Your memory will carry on._”

Suddenly Julie understands with perfect clarity why this music means so much to her boys. 

“ _We’ll carry on._ ”

Neither life nor death had been very kind to any of them.

“ _We’ll carry on._ ”

The boys had to deal with everything from shitty parents to dysphoria to the threat of a second death. Julie had lost the most important person in her world, and then nearly lost the people meant to heal that wound.

“ _And in my heart I can’t contain it._ ”

But all four of them owed it to everyone and everything they had lost to give this second chance everything they have in them. 

“ _The anthem won’t explain it._ ”

By some miracle, all of them are still here. They’re still making music. And as long as they can do that, they’ll carry on.


End file.
